‘Burning’ events focus on life in 18th century
People were out and about Friday and Saturday, Oct. 18 and 19, taking part in events commemorating the Burning of Kingston in 1777, despite the loss of biennial Revolutionary War reenactments.
Volunteer reenactment groups decided to perform elsewhere this year. Still, when Mayor Steve Noble learned the disappointing news, he said that the weekend was a great opportunity “to celebrate how the first capital came together to rebuild (Kingston) and its community.”
As a village and later a city, Kingston has a rich heritage, not the least of which is its claim to fame as being New York state’s first capital. British troops under Gen. John Vaughn burned the village on their way up to Hudson to meet Gen. John Burgoyne’s forces at Saratoga, which were then being defeated by American troops.
As most locals know, there really wasn’t much of a battle. According to history websites, most citizens had fled Kingston. The British burned more than 300 buildings in what is now the uptown Stockade Historic District, decimating the village.
Of note Saturday was a poster displayed at the Fred J. Johnston House Museum at 63 Main St., which shows the buildings burned by the British troops and a list of the people who owned them and lost everything.
Added to this year’s events was a special exhibit, lecture and march sponsored by Harambee Kingston on Saturday. Harambee focused on the lives of enslaved persons during the Revolutionary War and their lives in Kingston during the burning.
Adults and children at the Senate House’s “Autumn Festival” on Fair Street Saturday got a good taste of the colonial life during the rebuilding of Kingston. There were at least seven fires going on the Senate House lawn in service of crafting tools and cooking food, plus a little entertainment.
Blacksmiths Alan Horowitz of Stony Point and Ralph Lapidus of West Nyack demonstrated the fine art of making nails. “You heat the iron till it’s redhot,” said Lapidus, pumping the bellows while he heated the iron. Red-hot is a bit soft, he said, as he hammered it on the anvil, lengthening and squaring the metal. “You hammer it till it’s black, then you heat it up again.”
Lapidus said it took 10 years of apprenticeship in colonial days to become a blacksmith – a boy would begin at age 8 and become a blacksmith at 18. Nails were expensive, too, and a house in those days would use about 5,000 of them.
Brian and Gaby Burnett, of New Paltz, along with their eight-month old daughter Sophia, enjoyed watching The Rev. Chris Berean smoke meat in a colonial-style smoker.
“I’ve never been here before,” said Gaby, who mentioned that she’d moved to the U.S. from Peru not so long ago. “It’s interesting. I didn’t know Kingston was burned.”
She added that people smoked meat in a similar way in Peru. “Mostly pork,” she said. “It’s really good!”
Berean said he had been smoking the beef for about six hours . “It’s not cooked, though,” he added. “This is just for flavor.”
Berean said colonials would have smoked their meat for up to 24 hours for storage. “It would be dry, like beef jerky,” he said. “They’d probably make stew out of it when they finally used it.”
Rebecca Howe-Parsio, of High Falls, who works for the Senate House, demonstrated colonial candlemaking. She heated a huge pot of beeswax over an open flame, then poured some into a smaller pot for candle-dipping.
Howe-Pariso instructed 7-year-old Margot Sarthou to dip once, walk around the table so the wax could cool, then dip again. It would take about 40 dips of the long, braided flax wick to build up enough wax to create a candle.
“It’s easy, I like it,” said Margot. She dipped her candle and walked around the table a few times, then went to watch the juggler juggle fire while the wax hardened.